This invention relates to improvements in deposit and collection receptacles, such as mailboxes, and more particularly to a security mailbox with a limited access storage compartment for the collection and retention of mail or other valuable items.
1. Field of the Invention
Conventional mailboxes, as used in the United States, have usually comprised a horizontal elongated mail receiving portion having a door at one end for the placement or retrieval of mail placed therein.
Such mailboxes have for many years involved the mounting of the mailbox along a curb or roadway or into the wall of the home for delivery and pick-up of mail. Mailboxes are typically accessible to delivery persons or the home owner for picking up their mail but are also generally accessible to unauthorized persons. Thus, leaving mail susceptible to theft, vandalism or lack of privacy when the home owner is gone from home for several days or more. Mail being delivered on a daily basis accumulates in the mailbox providing a signal or sign to unscrupulous individuals that the home owner is gone for an extended period, perhaps inducing vandalism of the home. While the home owner can request mail be withheld or authorize a trusted friend to collect mail in his absence, there are times when such a solution is impractical, for example, when the homeowner must leave the home on very short notice or forget to make such arrangement with the post office or a neighbor.
It is therefore desirable to have a mail or other valuable item receptacle which allows the delivery person to place the articles therein which moves by gravity to an inaccessible compartment accessible only by a key or person having a code to an access door therein.
This invention provides such a mail or valuable item receptacle.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The most pertinent prior patent is believed to be U.S. Pat. No. 3,735,919 issued May 29, 1973 to Morgan for MAILBOX. This patent discloses a vertically elongated mailbox having a permanent top cap and a top door for receiving or picking up mail including a bottom compartment having a lockable door. A trap door horizontally divides the mailbox to form the upper and lower compartments with a vertical pivotal rod within the top compartment secured to the top door which pivots about its vertical axis and rotates a laterally extending arm underlying the trap door and opens the trap door as the arm pivots and closes it when the top door is opened. When the top mail receiving door is closed by the delivery person the arm and roller pivots outwardly from under the trap door allowing the mail to fall by gravity into the lower compartment to be accessed by the homeowner through a keyed entry.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,724,999 issued Feb. 16, 1988 to Fitzgerald et al for SECURED MAILBOX and 5,096,115 issued Mar. 17, 1992 to Hassan for MAIL THEFT PREVENTIVE MAILBOX are considered to be good examples of the further state-of-the-art.
The Fitzgerald et al patent discloses a mailbox having a top partition which supports mail to be picked up by the mail person and a forward hinged trap door which is pivoted downwardly to for receiving mail to be picked up so that mail deposited by the mailman falls down a chute formed by the door and inside panel sections for preventing an unauthorized person reaching mail in the lower key-accessed compartment.
The Hassan patent discloses a mailbox with a top partition within vertically pivoting top doors supporting mail to be picked up. Mail deposited by the mailman is placed under that top partition which falls by gravity into the lower end of a key-accessed compartment to be retrieved by the homeowner.
This invention is believed distinctive over the above patents by providing a mail receiving housing having a top opening door gang connected a the lower trap door forming a horizontal partition in the housing which is closed upon opening the top access door and opens to allow mail placed on the trap door to fall by gravity into the lower depending end of the housing which is provided with a key-accessed door for removing mail.